Sat., 11:18 pm: San Antonio man glad to receive Medal of Honor

February 22, 2014

SAN ANTONIO - Former Sgt. Santiago Erevia remembers the day in May 1969 when his Army unit came under heavy enemy fire in Vietnam. While crawling from one wounded solder to the next, the radio telephone operator used two M-16s and several grenades to single-handedly destroy four enemy bunkers and their occupants.

Decades later, the Texas man's heroic feat earned him the Medal of Honor.

"I thought I was going to get killed when I started to advance because when you fight battles like that you don't expect to live," Erevia told The Associated Press today.

Erevia is one of 24 veterans who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to receive the U.S. military's highest honor after a congressionally mandated review of minorities who may have been passed over because of long-held prejudices. The veterans - most of Hispanic or Jewish heritage - will be recognized in a March 18 ceremony that will try to correct the long-ignored ethnic and religious discrimination in the armed forces

The 68-year-old retired postal worker is one of 18 Latinos whose heroic deeds earned them the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second-highest award for gallantry, and whose recognition is bringing to light the long history of military service among the Latino community - despite the prejudice they faced.

"For Mexican-American and Latino veterans, it's a really high point," Ignacio Garcia, a Vietnam veteran and Latino history professor at Brigham Young University, said. "It highlights the notion of duty - in spite of problems, and despite limitations that people put upon the Latino community, and despite having being treated as second-class citizens."

Erevia, cited for courage during a search and clear mission near Tam Ky, South Vietnam, on May 21, 1969, is one of three of the 24 veterans who will be honored who are still alive. Former Sgt. Jose Rodela, from Corpus Christi, Texas, who will receive the medal for bravery during fighting in Phuoc Long province, Vietnam, in early September 1969, also lives in San Antonio.

The other recipient still alive is Melvin Morris, became one of the first soldiers to don a "green beret" in 1961 and volunteered twice for deployments to Vietnam during the war. Morris endured massive enemy fire directed at him and his men - he was hit three times - but was able to a fellow commander who'd been killed and recover the body. He also retrieved a map that included strategic information that would have been trouble if it fell into enemy hands.